


What Comes Before, But Not After

by R_Armchair



Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Gen, Menstruation, Podfic, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes, Secrets, fertility
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 16:42:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18392300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_Armchair/pseuds/R_Armchair
Summary: Vers confronts menstruation and its implications.





	What Comes Before, But Not After

**Author's Note:**

> Where I am a one trick period pony
> 
> If you want to listen:  
> [ Dropbox mp3 lies here](https://www.dropbox.com/s/v68vlqvxmgv80nb/WhatComesBeforeButNotAfter.mp3?dl=0)

What Comes Before

  
The first time Vers bled, she awoke to the blue fluid sticking her thighs to her sheets.  The morning seemed as normal as any other, but she soon realized that she didn’t own a tampon.  She bit into the corner of an old shirt and yanked until it ripped.  After folding the scrap of fabric, she placed it in her underwear.

Only when she left her apartment, did the fact come crashing into her.  Tampons and pads didn’t exist.  Everything about the blood between her legs had seemed routine.  Yet, there she stood, knowing that Kree didn’t experience whatever this phenomenon was.  She didn’t get along with Minn-Erva enough to ask, and Yon-Rogg surely wouldn’t understand a process that fundamentally seemed related to her sex.

She told no one.  Not even when she convened with the Supreme Intelligence did she let the thought surface.

Her bleeding remained a secret.  Her uniform was already programmed to deal with bodily excretions, so she was able to flow unabated into her suit.  Only when she was home or training did she have to wedge fabric against her genitalia in hopes she didn’t leak all over the place.  If Yon-Rogg were to find out, he’d just use her secrecy as proof of her inability to disconnect from her emotions.  Anyone would consider what she was going through a medical emergency.  Though, the impulse that her bleeding was entirely normal remained.

Then the dreams came.  Images played of her leading a life she didn’t remember.  One where she danced and held another woman.  One where she played with a child.  One where she asked that same woman what pregnancy was like.

The morning that she first saw the child, was the day that her blood changed.  No longer fresh, chilled, and blue, there was now warmth in both temperature and color.  By the time a year had passed, her blood fully ran maroon, hot, and clotted.

Her dreams were feverish, but her life continued.

 

* * *

 

What Never Comes

 

Overworked and stressed from relocating the Skrull, Carol didn’t notice something obvious.  After roughly a year since they’d left Earth’s orbit, Talos had announced he was expecting another child with his wife. 

An entire year.

There was no blood.

Not even an inch of hair had grown further from her head.

Releasing her limiter had overloaded her human body.  She was now ageless.   Immortality might be a gift to some, but that distant thought of motherhood itched at the back of her thoughts.  She could now pull that memory in clarity.  She remembered the moment when she asked Maria about carrying a child.  Her friend had claimed there was nothing in the universe like it.  Joy had lit her face, despite having to raise her daughter as a single mother.

“So,” Talos said, nudging her in the ribs, “When you going to start a family of your own?  You’ve done more than enough for us.  It’s about time to give yourself a break.”

“I can’t have children.” 

The second the words left her lips, she knew they were the truth.  The weight of the sentence stripped the air from her lungs.  Soren shoved her husband out of the way and wrapped her arms around Carol.  She sobbed into the Skrull’s tunic in an utterly human way that the Kree would’ve never approved of.

“I know this isn’t the time.  And probably the last thing you want to hear.  But, you must know that there is more than one type of family,” Soren said, stroking Carol’s hair in a motherly way that caused her heart to break even further.

 


End file.
